


Two Screens Away

by Thesis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, No actual sex occurs, Sexting, a weird get-together fic, but sexting, kenma jackin' it, kuroo implied to jack it, marked for underage bc they're both still highschoolers in this, sorry for who i am as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:28:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thesis/pseuds/Thesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuroo and Kenma accidentally start platonically sexting. Kuroo and Kenma worry about their futures.  Kuroo and Kenma talk a lot about time travel and dating sims.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Screens Away

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [На расстоянии в два клика](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11492847) by [jana_nox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jana_nox/pseuds/jana_nox)



It begins because Kuroo and Lev collide during practice in a spectacular display of idiocy. Kenma isn't sure if Lev's plan was to receive the ball or if he just wanted to hurl his entire body into Kuroo's side, but he succeeds impressively at both.

After practice, Kenma watches Kuroo get changed, checking to see if there's a bruise forming yet. He has already gotten dressed, but waits patiently so they can walk home together, tapping at a game on his cell phone to pass the time. It doesn't require much attention, and so he can keep watching Kuroo.

Kuroo catches his eye and smirks at him. "Like something you see?"

Kenma can only roll his eyes. The mere concept of Kuroo having game is ridiculous. Girls flirt with him constantly, or try to, but he doesn't even _notice_. Kuroo is not suave. He is kinder than people think, and observant if he's interested in something - like volleyball, for example. But he is no smooth player. 

Kenma recalls just last month, when they went shopping after school. They had been discussing where to stop – whether or not Kuroo was going indulge Kenma in crepes from the stand near the bookshop – when a girl from Kuroo's class had struck up conversation. In a matter of minutes she'd manages to say, with a sigh and a shy smile, “I was supposed to go out with my friends after school, but they bailed, and I'm locked out of my house until evening...” 

Kuroo had just blinked at her, then frowned sympathetically and told her “that sucks.”

Kenma had winced at how blind he was to being flirted. Then felt the embarrassment ten times over when the girl had tried, less subtly, “yeah, so... I'm really desperate for something to do today.”

Kuroo had told her, with utter sincerity, “I hope you find something,” then turned to Kenma and ushered him off without looking back to see her disappointed face. And when Kenma pointed out the exchange (days later, of course, because he hadn't wanted her around either), Kuroo had been shocked at the idea that she might have wanted to spend time with him.

So Kenma just snickers quietly, at the hilarious concept of Kuroo being able to recognize flirting, or being able to flirt. He has no moves to speak of.

He is not staring because Kuroo's back muscles are fascinating, or because his hips are jagged and interesting to look at. He is not staring at the slight space between his shorts and his pelvis, where they are lifted just slightly by his hip bones.

It's to check for bruises.

But if he mentions the collision outloud, it might attract Lev's attention. Kenma doesn't want to hear him apologizing and bragging in the same breath for the next three days, so he opts to text Kuroo: "Checking for a bruise." After a moment he sends, "also you're getting really toned."

Kuroo glances at him, recognizing the action, but finishes getting dressed before tending to it. He checks his phone while they walk to the station, and even though they are essentially alone now, he still texts back, "oh? oh???"

"Your abdomen," Kenma texts back. They walk side by side, the only sound between them their footsteps down the steps and the alternating vibrations of their phones. 

"It's pretty hard. Wanna touch it?"

"That sounds dirty. (But kind of?)"

It is interesting, after all, feeling Kuroo's body. Feeling the ways he has grown since they were younger - the parts of him that feel hard and somehow adult, and the spots of his body that are still soft and squishy. He would not have admitted it out loud, but Kuroo cannot make fun of him for it if it's over text. These are the unwritten rules they have always followed.

When he is anxious in a crowd, or feels sick and doesn't want the rest of the team fretting, he can always text Kuroo for help. And Kuroo can't tell on him, or even speak of it out loud. He can only react physically. Lead Kenma from others, shoo them away. Bring him medicine and end practice early.

Equally, Kenma cannot say a word about when Kuroo is overwhelmed with schoolwork and college prep. He can distract him for hours and say nothing of it out loud.

The train comes, they take their seats. It is quiet and warm, even in the evening. It smells like summertime and sun-baked cement, even as the train pulls away from the platform. Kenma likes these smells. He recalls missing them on the few camping trips he has been dragged on, even as Kuroo soaked up the smell of dirt and rivers. 

Kenma's phone rests in his hand idly as he watches the scenery go by. When it finally vibrates again it startles him, but somehow the words never do. Kenma thinks he could probably take anything better over text than outloud. 

Kuroo's message reads: "If it were a dirty text I wouldn't just say 'pretty hard' lol"

His lips quirk up in amusement, thumbs flitting over the keys easily. Texting is easier than speaking, sometimes. There is a chance to think through what you are saying, to edit. The concept of that is so comforting that Kenma feels relaxed, texting. Ironically, it soothes his anxieties so much that he does not make _use_ of the opportunity to filter his thoughts. 

"Ah, you'd have to be more decisive."

"I'll try again," Kuroo texts him, because he is a teenage boy, and teenage boys are lewd without a second thought. Kenma can hear him chuckling beside him, but keeps his eyes on his phone for the next message. "I'm so hard right now." 

If Kenma has learned _anything_ from the locker-rooms, it is that boys his age are shameless. They will take every joke too far. Especially boys like Kuroo, who are not so insecure that they need to back down and interrupt themselves to demand you acknowledge how heterosexual they are. 

No. Kuroo embraces jokes with everything he has. Subject matter or implications have never been important. 

His next text, before Kenma can reply: "I bet your hands would feel so good on my cock."

Kenma snorts, hiding his smile behind his palm. He feels Kuroo's appreciative gaze on the back of his neck; it's not often that Kuroo can get him to lose his composure and laugh. His cheeks heat up against his will, but it's easier to handle embarrassing words in text than out loud.

"They're calloused."

"I like it rough."

"Better stick to your own. My hands are a lot smaller than yours."

"Feels better just having someone else do it. You're so observent, I bet you'd make it good."

Kenma considers this. Kuroo crossing lines is not so unusual. It is rare for Kenma to play along, but this time he does without thought. "It would probably be easy to read you, especially if I'm touching you. I'd be able to feel it when you swell. You'd twitch right in my hands, so I'd know how fast to stroke."

Kuroo just goes with it, apparently. "Fuck, that's hot. You might need both hands, you'd make me so hot and hard."

Kenma quirks an eyebrow at his phone. Kuroo isn't very good at this. His vocabulary is too limited. Kenma can do so much better, and he isn't even a writer, by nature.

"Maybe. But I think if you were close I'd be," he stops himself from typing 'impatient,' because he can't very well call Kuroo bad at this and then admit that there's a high probability of himself getting bored while giving a handjob. He pauses to think of the right words.

He backspaces and tries again. This is a game. Kenma wins games. "I'd want to push you over the edge. See you lose it for me. I could suck you off - wrap my lips around you and use my tongue until you're desperate to come."

Kuroo's first reply is just "Jesus Kenma," then a moment later: "I'd love to bury my fingers in your hair and feel your head bob on my lap."

"You could come in my mouth, if you wanted. I would let you."

"How about on your cute face?"

He drops character, frowning at the idea. "It would get in my hair."

Kuroo does not falter. "Yeah, I'd rub my dick on your cheek and come in your hair and you'd be drooling for it."

Kenma blinks at his phone. Gross. And missing punctuation. He almost glances in Kuroo's direction, but his cheeks feel hot, the awkwardness of the subject finally catching up with him. He keeps his eyes on his phone and shifts in his seat uncomortably. He does not know how to reply to that, and so he doesn't. Besides, he figures, the scene was pretty much over, anyway.

It was all just a joke that dragged on too long.

The rest of the train ride is oddly quiet. This never bothers him, because he spends too much time in comfortable silence with Kuroo for that. But there is something undeniably unusual about the persistant bounce of Kuroo's leg. There is a strange heat in his stomach, different from the tight feeling of anxiety. Kenma does not know what to do with this.

He plays games on his cell phone to distract himself, and by the time they are splitting up at the gates of his house, he feels normal again.

Except it doesn't last, because his body is hormonal and he gets hard when his mind wanders before bed. Kenma thinks he is lucky to be a teenager in the era of free porn and cell phone browsers. They make this kind of problem easy to deal with.

But he doesn't tap the icon for his browser. He pulls up his messages, instead.

"I'd love to bury my fingers in your hair and feel your head bob on my lap."

Kenma feels his face flushing, worse this time than before. Before it had just been crude language making him shy. But now he is hard and reading Kuroo's words in a different way. 

He had just been writing what he assumes people write when they sext. Which is apparently _actually_ a thing, or so the hallway conversations he overhears imply. For a long time he had thought it was just one of those falsities that adults fret over and create in their own minds because they are afraid of technology.

He supposes he can see the appeal. There are no real, physical repurcussions. Reading the words makes them feel real and vivid; he can hear Kuroo's voice saying them, can picture Kuroo praising him. 

He'd probably hold his hair out of the way for him - he's always doing small, kind things that no one notices. He'd gently guide him up and down on his cock, and Kenma wonders how it would feel to have Kuroo's dick pressed against his cheek. To nuzzle into it and rub against it with his hand and feel him come.

Kenma palms his erection through his sweatpants. He feels like he is burning up, and he reads the texts again and the image is so clear and _there_.

"Yeah, I'd rub my dick on your cheek and come in your hair and you'd be drooling for it."

He finally lets himself reach beneath his waistband.

Their texts are for secrets and scheduling, since they are so rarely apart. There is nothing but “be up early tomorrow,” and “i see your light on!! meet me outside for a midnight snack run!” 

And then today.

There are no messages past these. There is something about this that he likes.

His fingers tap at the keys, slow and deliberate. Once it's written, he stares at his message for a long time. This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea, but he is so hot now, slowly jerking himself off beneath the covers.

"You'd leave me that worked up?" 

Kenma buries his face in his pillow, instantly overcome with shame. His motives must be obvious. Kuroo must know what he's doing - what he's using these messages for - and the thought terrifies him. 

He imagines with horror what Kuroo will think of him. But his arousal wins out against anxiety, and he imagines how Kuroo described thinking of him. Eyes glazed over, short of breath, rubbing his cheek on Kuroo's cock in anticipation of seeing him come. Does Kuroo see him that way normally?

He wonders what sort of expression Kuroo would wear. Eyes half-lidded, his own hand on his shaft. Probably stroking lazily, stopping to pet Kenma's hair, whispering to him to keep going, telling him how good it feels. He wonders what he would smell like, and thinks of how Kuroo smells after practice. He thinks of Kuroo's shampoo, when he bathes while Kenma waits in his room during sleepovers, and of the new cologne he's been wearing for the last month.

Kenma shivers.

Then almost jumps out of his skin when his phone vibrates. 

"Course not. I'd be able to tell what you want. It'd be hard not to come with your pretty face looking up at me. I bet your eyes'd go all wide and needy."

His fist slides up and down his cock, feeling his precome leaking out. It's dizzying to imagine himself in that place. He feels himself throb as he pauses to reply. He isn't sure what to say when it's about himself. He had spent his messages describing lavishing Kuroo with attention.

"Touching you would get me too hot to think."

The thought of it already has. Kenma vaguely recalls judging Kuroo for his poor sexting but now he admits he's hardly keeping up his own end of the exchange.

But he is hard and he is _close_ and all he feels is the white-hot need to hear more.

"I bet it would feel real good to jerk you off and hear you whimper and whine for more."

God, that's good. Kenma does not even reply, just stroking himself faster. He holds his breath, imagines Kuroo's hand instead of his own, bigger and rough, although he thinks he would try not to be. 

His phone goes off again, "Could hold our dicks together and rub em in my hand, get all wet with pre and feel how hard you get for me. an you look so fragile but i know you'd want it so bad Kenma you're so dirty"

Kenma shudders, biting his lip hard as he comes, still echoing the words in his head.

He hears his own heavy panting in the quiet of his bedroom as he comes down from the orgasm. He stills. Then his brain catches up with him, a rushed mess of "need a towel," and " _oh_ God no," as he reads over the message a couple more times to confirm it is real.

Kuroo's typing is never the _best_ , but it certainly got worse with that last message. That he had sent before Kenma had even replied to the first.

_You'd want it so bad, Kenma, you're so dirty,_ he remembers, and shivers.

He has to close the conversation and let himself go to sleep. He is grateful that he is too tired to have a panic attack.

They do not speak of it in the morning.

Sometimes the others on the team joke that Kenma is like a cyborg or a robot, analyzing people around him. He ocassionally wishes this were true, because he's sure he'd be able to detect more useful information. 

All he can tell from extended (hopefully discreet) staring during the walk to school is that Kuroo's hair seems messier than usual, like he overslept and hasn't even run his hands through it the typical number of times since waking. Kenma cannot allow himself to linger on what this means.

Kuroo does not say a word about it, even as he watches Kenma play games on his phone. Kenma feels acutely aware that their texts are just two taps away. 

He feels as if it is always in the back of his mind. Just like the texts are two screens away on his phone, they are just two thoughts away in his mind. And Kuroo has a way of stirring him up unintentionally, bringing it to the top of his memories. 

Loose shrugs of his shoulders and the particular fall of his sweatpants around his calves when he stretches have become a fraction more fascinating than they were Before The Texts. If he's honest, they always were, but he is hyper-aware.

***

“I see your light on.” Kuroo texts him at 3 am.

Kenma replies, “It's the weekend, I'm allowed,” as quickly as he can, before returning to his video game. He wants to beat it before the internet spoils the endings and alternate routes. Supposedly there are hundreds of endings depending on your choices, and he wants his first playthrough to be honest.

Kenma ignores his phone vibrating the first time. And the second. When he finally checks it, the first message is, “don't mess up your sleep schedule too bad.” Then, apparently ten minutes later, “are you playing ero games again?”

“N O,” Kenma replies, cheeks flushing. Not that he hasn't played ero games, depending on the studio, but they aren't his genre of choice. He doesn't like games that are more reading than gameplay. They feel like poorly written books for indecisive writers.

“Oh sure, sure. I know the truth. I know you're naughty.”

Kenma instinctively types back, “oh shut up,” but hesitates before hitting send. He scrolls higher in their conversation. Their texts just above these ones are sexts - he probably cannot argue that he is innocent. So instead he just replies with his logical conclusion on the matter: “Well, sometimes.”

“What sort of ero games do you play?” Kuroo asks.

Kenma figures this is a fair question. He's never really talked about hem before, and they aren't games he'd play in front of Kuroo. (Mostly because Kuroo would be bored by the lengthy dialogue. Kuroo could hardly handle Persona, let alone something that removes most of the RPG elements.) He lists off a few of the games he likes, leaving out that they are mostly the same studio. In fact, two of them are practically the same game with different character designs.

Whatever. Kuroo doesn't know any better to judge him for it. “Tell me about one?”

Sometimes, when Kuroo is stressed, he likes to talk about nonsense. He has never said as much, but Kenma has noticed that he over-thinks his impending graduation the most late at night, and that he tries to make Kenma lead conversations more in those moments.

Kenma is always making him lead conversations, because he is always nervous, so it makes sense to him that Kuroo would do the same. He is anxious less often than Kenma, thankfully, so Kenma is willing to take care of him every so often.

In a way, it's sort of nice to actually get to talk about his interests. Normally he doesn't bother, in part from nerves and in part because he is polite enough to spare his disinterested friends from the ramblings. With Kuroo, there is no nervousness. Kuroo wants him to talk, about anything at all. 

He tries to remember a game with an easy storyline. Sometimes their plots get so convoluted that they would be impossible to explain.

“There's one where you're a time traveler guy, and you have to try and find some reincarnation of an angel? Basically? While going to school. And a fox is there for some reason.”

“That sounds like the worst porn game ever.”

“A lot of ero games only add porn to get the funding, but they're basically just normal visual novels with a sex scene for each character. I think death themes are surprisingly common.”

“What type of girls can you date in that one?”

Kenma considers the type of girls Kuroo usually likes, both at school and in video games. He likes the quiet ones, the mages. Delicate girls. 

Then he remembers the game he was talking about was a BL game.

But Kuroo cannot bring this up out loud, because they are texting, so he admits it easily enough. “Well. None.”

“Oho? You play games where you can bang dudes???”

“Sometimes.”

“Hmmmmm.”

Kenma does not know what that mean. He waits for an explanation, but none comes, and eventually he realizes he has been staring at his phone for five minutes, his game paused.

It is late, late at night. He shuts off his game and tucks himself into bed with the lights off. The exhaustion of the night catches up with him. He taps over his apps to open a screen dimmer to turn down the blue light of his screen. 

His fingers swipe across his phone lazily, an answer to Kuroo's unasked question. “Pansexual.”

“I don't know that one.”

“Means I can love whoever. Regardless.”

“Ah.”

Kenma feels uncomfortable with the admission. He had thought he wouldn't, with the knowledge that it is a secret between just them. With the knowledge that this is Kuroo, who always takes care of him. This doesn't even feel like a huge secret, but the short responses are unnerving.

“Who's your fav dude from that game? Whats his route like?”

Kenma blinks at the message. It's reassuring. “Are you trying to get me to talk ero to you?”

“Maybe.” So, yes.

“Childhood friend route,” Kenma texts him, fingers faster than his brain. He follows up with even more blunt honesty, “I have immediate regrets about telling you.”

“Why? Tell me about his story or I'm gonna punch this homework in the face.”

Kenma does not question the logic. He does not answer the 'why.' “You save him from dying. Constantly. He's really death-prone. He helps you try to find the angel but it turns out he has a lot of his own problems. He's one of the only characters who has their own bad end, instead of just rerouting you to a different character's ending.”

“he sounds like a hassle”

“He was well written.” Kenma pauses for a moment. As long as they're being weirdly open, he sends a second message, “besides. I liked that. The MC goes through way more for him than anyone other route, but never gets fed up with it.”

The reply takes a couple minutes. Kenma hopes that Kuroo used them to work on his homework, because it is unnerving to think he spent so long thinking of a response. “I guess.”

Kenma frowns. He is not used to lukewarm answers. He allows himself to openly pout, knowing no one can see the jut of his lower lip, and indignantly does not reply to the message.

… Except, it feels terrible to stop a conversation like that. He is about to give in and text further nonsense when his phone vibrates.

“That's not very like impressive or anything tho. That's just how it works when you're best friends who grow up together.”

Kenma's heart flutters in his chest. He feels his ears heating up. 

Then Kuroo adds, “and when you're in love,” and Kenma has to hide his face in his pillow. He does not get the chance to recover enough to ask for clarification. “Now tell me about that sexytime!!!”

“Your character moved away, a while back, and just came back home. So they were already close, and just keep getting closer throughout his route. They never really talk about it or determine anything, it just progresses and escalates on its own.”

“So. Basically what we're doing.”

Kenma does not reply, because he is not sure what to say to that. It is blatant. There is no possible way to misinterpret that. His anxiety still rises just as much as his heart-rate, desperately searching for innocent meanings. 

He does not want to be an idiot. There must be a way that he is misinterpreting this. Because if he thinks he's not, and he says something stupid, and he ruins things – he can't even imagine that.

Kuroo's next message is “sorry. Don't stress about that.”

“I'm not,” Kenma lies.

“Great. Explain time travel to me.”

Kenma does his best, staying up far longer than he wanted to, until the pauses between their messages are suspiciously like dozing off, and he is hardly coherent in his summary of all the time travel stories he can remember reading or seeing. 

***

Kenma is half playing an old strategy RPG for Kuroo, because Kuroo is shit at exploiting the good stages for level-grinding, but he is also half staring at the folds of Kuroo's shirt between his shoulder blades. He lays on his side on Kuroo's bed, staring past the DS screen. Kuroo's shoulders sometimes shake as he snickers at whatever he is watching on TV. 

The sound of his laughter is nice. The background music of the game, quiet and surprisingly peaceful even in battle, blends together with the commercials. 

Kenma supposes it would be a waste to ruin this comfortable relationship by pushing for more. He sometimes gets the feeling Kuroo would do anything for him. This thought is simultaneously soothing and nerve-wracking.

He does not recall dozing off, but he knows at some point Kuroo is gently pulling the DS from his hands. He does not open his eyes but hears it snap shut and a moment of shuffling as Kuroo plugs it in to its charger. Kuroo knows that nothing irritates Kenma more than waking up to low-battery electronics.

The tv continues playing, and he sees its brightness behind his eyelids. He rolls over to face the wall and falls back asleep. 

He briefly dreams. He dreams of a garden party hosted by Kuroo's parents, many years ago. In real life, he had been anxious. He sat on the sidelines in the sun, because his parents wanted him to attend with grandeur delusions of him socializing with the other kids. He had texted Kuroo to save him, and the older boy had wordlessly taken his hand and dragged him inside to play video games. Kuroo's parents had scolded him later for abandoning all the other kids.

In the dream, he sits beside Kuroo, enjoying the sun and the view of all the party-goers chatting and snacking. In the dream, he freezes the nice moment in front of them, and the two of them are the only ones who can still move. 

With the natural, illogical way of dreams, the party goers shift, until they are different people, and always were. His family remains, but strangers are replaced with his teammates and the Karasuno team. They are frozen in good-natured roughhousing.

Kuroo and him are their true age, instead of children, for a moment.

Then he blinks, and Kuroo is older. There is no clue to give it away, but Kenma knows he is in college, moved away. He is only back to visit.

Kenma looks at his own hands, and knows he has not aged the same. 

It is a relief to wake up, and let the dream blur away until he can scarcely remember it.

The room is dark and quiet. The bed creaks under new weight as Kuroo climbs into the bed beside him, taking the space between Kenma and the wall. Kuroo finds small spaces comforting; Kenma imagines walling himself in this way is his way of coping with having to share his pillows instead of making a weird fort around his head. 

And then - something Kenma isn't used to. Kuroo's hand holds him in place by the hip, maybe to keep him from rolling into the new incline of the mattress. It's strange to feel his hand so casually where he doesn't usually touch. Kenma's sweatshirt has ridden up in his sleep, his sweatpants slightly too big and loose on his hips. 

He can feel Kuroo's calloused touch, careful and soft against his own smooth skin.

He has to bite his lip to stop from letting out a sound.

Kuroo curls up behind him, and Kenma feels him exhale, warm in his hair. Kuroo had been holding his breath, as if that would make the difference in waking him up when the whole world moved. 

Kenma squirms closer to Kuroo, working himself flush against him. 

Sharing a bed is nothing new. It only began out of stubbornness on both their parts, but now Kenma is grateful and would trade it for nothing. When they used to have sleepovers, Kenma would finally admit he was too tired to stay up any longer. Kuroo would remind him where the guest futons were kept, but silently refuse to get them for him.

Kenma had been too anxious to get them himself. It was someone else's house, and the fear of making a mistake, not looking in the right spot, bumping into Kuroo's family, looking silly – all of it terrified him. It was before this home was as good as his, before Kuroo's parents were practically his own.

Even now, when he helps himself to anything in Kuroo's home with comfort and ease, he would rather sleep in Kuroo's bed.

He can feel Kuroo's gaze on the nape of his neck. His own eyes adjust slowly, and he stares at the furniture across from him. It smells warm and musky. He is overheated from falling asleep in his hoodie.

His voice is quiet, whiny with sleep as he rolls onto his back and crinkles his nose, “too hot.”

Kuroo's hand had not pulled back, dragged across Kenma's abdomen with his movement. It's a disappointment for it to leave his opposite hip, now, but Kuroo chuckles, low under his breath. Then starts tugging Kenma's sweatshirt off for him with a murmured “lift up.”

Kenma obeys, arching his back off the bed until it's high enough that he has to sit up slightly. Kuroo helps, a hand pressing at his back so he doesn't have to sit all the way up. 

“Kind of nice to be babied,” Kenma mumbles as he falls back down. He turns to face Kuroo, smoothing his T-shirt down before brushing his hair from his face and tucking it behind his ear.

“That's my move,” Kuroo says.

Kenma just smiles at him, vision clearing. He sees Kuroo grin, but has to lean his head back for it. When he relaxes, all he can see is collar bone. Kuroos hand is back at his hip, but it does nothing to stop Kenma from leaning towards him.

He reaches under Kuroo's shirt slowly, carefully, in case Kuroo is going to protest. He doesn't. His fingers gingerly brush up against Kuroo's abdomen, runnning up to his chest experimentally. Kuroo is so much bigger than him. He does not think he will ever grow that much, even in his last year of high school.

He thinks of Kuroo graduating and wonders what college he will go to - about how far away he will be. Texting with Shouyou and rarely seeing him in person isn't so bad. Maybe it will be the same with Kuroo. Maybe their texts messages will get longer in the distance. 

Maybe they will not.

That thought discomforts him. Right now their only texts are brief, sporadic messages and the sexts. He can't imagine that being enough. 

Kenma feels a puff of air as Kuroo snickers into his hair, oblivious to what's going on in Kenma's head. That's fine. Kenma isn't entirely sure, either. But he knows that he likes the way Kuroo's fingers flex at his hip, grip loosening before holding tight again.

Kuroo always takes the lead in their scenes, describing pushing him around and marking him with bites or his scent or his come. He's into the whole dominance thing. Kenma wonders if that is real or fake. 

Kenma is never sure what carries over from their sexts. He is a virgin. Porn and fantasies are one thing - but sometimes the idea of something is hotter than its reality. If someone is personally aroused by what they're writing, even a neutral reader will see it as erotic.

Just because they ocassionally rely on one another for masturbation material, Kenma reminds himself, does not have to mean anything. It does not, by _default_ , mean something.

But there is more to it than just sexting to get off. He knows that, through his nervousness, through his anxiety. He wants Kuroo to be the one person he trusts, even through whatever is wrong with his brain, but it's not that easy. His mind works miracles with the blatant flirting, the near admissions, as if there is any possible way to miss the message.

Kuroo lets him run his hand across his chest. Their warmth is caught in the tiny space between their bodies. It reminds Kenma of the summer sun in his dream, though now he can only vaguely recall details. 

“I dreamed about one of your parents' parties,” Kenma says. He glances up. Kuroo's eyes are scanning over him with interest. He doesn't appear to be looking for anything in particular. Just taking Kenma in. 

He feels self conscious with his hair tucked behind his ear, but fights the urge to do anything about it. 

“And about you graduating.”

Kuroo runs his thumb in soothing lines up and down Kenma's hip bone. He points out, “you only know what one of those things is like.”

Kenma has no counter point. He just enjoys feeling the rise and fall of Kuroo's chest and tries to allow Kuroo to win the fight in his mind. Cross that bridge when they get to it. It doesn't quite work. “What'll happen?”

Broad shoulders roll in front of Kenma's eyes, an aimless shrug. Kenma wishes he could be so loose.

“I probably won't live at home, but I don't think I'll go far. Visiting distance, for sure.”

“Mm.”

“Try not to worry about it.”

Kenma does his best to be obedient, and distracts himself by exploring Kuroo. He mimics the older boy's touch, drawing his hand down to touch his hip. Running his thumb into the small space where his sweatpants are lifted from his pelvis by his hip bone. 

He is listening far too carefully to miss the slight uneven pattern to Kuroo's breathing. He can even hear the faint sound of the ticking wall clock in the hall outside Kuroo's room. The buzz of streetlights outside. He feels Kuroo's hand slide up and down his side in broader movements as time moves on.

“Kenma,” Kuroo says, “you know I'm in love with you, right?”

Well, Kenma thinks, it would be impossible to say 'no' after hearing that sentence. He decides to respond more kindly, in appreciation for the warm hand on his body. “I think so.”

Kuroo seems surprised. Kenma can read it in the way he shifts his body. “I figured you knew.”

“I second guessed it.”

“You hundred guessed it.”

“That doesn't make any sense...”

“Kenma, we've been sharing a bed for years. I take you on dates all the time. We've been sexting.”

“Well,” Kenma says, feeling silly. But he does not feel stupid or embarrassed; cannot help the small smile from tugging at his lips. 

Kuroo ventures, strangely shy considering the lead he's been taking, “you like me too, right?”

“You can say love, Kuro.”

Kuroo feigns a scandalized expression. “Then, that?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

_Amazing_ , Kenma thinks, at the both of them. They are idiots. It's a relief to have it stated plainly.

There is a cozy silence, until Kuroo eventually tells him, “I don't need to force a title on anything if you don't want to, but I need to know what I can and can't do.” 

Kenma considers. “This is fine. Everything so far is fine.”

He thinks of their sexting, and wonders when that will be reality. Someday, he's sure. He feels like maybe they skipped a step in their relationship, and it teeters on the very edge of the next logical step. But he's happy to linger here, and knows Kuroo is, too.

Someday Kuroo will go off to college, and someday he will come visit him. That's scary, but at the same time he knows that after that, he will be in college, himself. Text messages two screens away. Living together two years away.

He closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of Kuroo and his bed and his house, and lets himself drift back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So I guess what I'm saying is that I wanted to write a time travel story???


End file.
